Accelerators:
A National Resource for Scientific Research

Accelerators play a role in many aspects of our
lives. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that there
are 30,000 accelerators operating in the world. Many of
these are small and conduct behind-the-scenes work:
producing beams of radiation used to sterilize medical
equipment and keep pathogens at bay in our food supply,
imprinting computer chips with ions to improve their
performance, producing radioisotopes for cancer diagnosis
and treatment, and scanning shipping containers for illicit
materials.

Brookhaven National Laboratory, operator of several
accelerator complexes, has a global reputation for advancing
the frontiers of accelerator technology and
accelerator-based science. Our facilities and experts are
available for supporting the leading scientific endeavors of
academia, industry, medicine, national security and
education.

We welcome opportunities for new collaborations and
applications of our facilities and will continue to push the
limits of accelerator technology.

Brookhaven's Expertise in Accelerator Science and Technology

The Courant-Snyder strong focusing principle, conceived
at Brookhaven Lab and first employed in the Lab's
Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, revolutionized accelerator
design and has since become one of the guiding principles
behind every new accelerator in the world. That tradition
continues today.

Innovative Brookhaven designs of
superconducting magnets are in use at worldwide accelerator
facilities, including the Large Hadron Collider.
Expertise in high-temperature superconducting magnets is
expected to be of central importance to future facilities
and also to Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage systems.
The Lab’s developing competencies in superconducting RF
technology for high intensity beams, high-brightness and
high-energy Energy Recovery Linacs (ERL), and innovative
electron cooling techniques, together with its established
world leadership in acceleration of spin-polarized beams to
high energy, lay the groundwork for a future electron-ion
collider using the RHIC facility. The ERL development
is also valuable to research on very high brightness x-ray
free electron lasers (FELs).

Nobel Prize-Winning Research Based on Accelerators

Research done at Brookhaven accelerator facilities has led to
numerous awards, including nine Nobel Prizes:

1976 - Samuel C.C. Ting used the
Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to discover the J/psi
particle, confirming the existence of the top quark.

1980 - James Cronin and Val Fitch used
the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron to discover
charge-parity (CP) violation—a flaw in physics' central
belief that the universe is symmetrical.

2003 - Roderick MacKinnon used NSLS on
research explaining how a class of proteins helps to
generate nerve impulses—the electrical activity that
underlies all movement, sensation, and perhaps even thought.

2009 - Thomas A. Steitz and Venkatraman
Ramakrishnan used NSLS and other synchrotron
sources to produce atomic-level images that helped reveal
the inner-workings of the ribosome, a cellular complex
responsible for producing the thousands of proteins that are
required for living cells.

Partner with Brookhaven

Brookhaven's
state-of-the-art facilities are available to industry for
research and development in many fields. To gain access to
our facilities, contact the
Guest, User & Visitor Center.

Commercialization

We commercialize discoveries and technologies by
fostering collaborations with industry through licensing and
sponsored research. We actively promote
the formation of start-up companies around technologies
developed here. We grant licenses and take equity in new
ventures arising from our discoveries, and we also seek
funding from investors to develop new intellectual assets as
they move toward the marketplace.

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the Office of Science of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical,
biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security.
Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry
and government researchers. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE's Office of Science by Brookhaven
Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by the Research Foundation for the State
University of New York on behalf of Stony Brook University, the largest academic user of Laboratory
facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.